


From Olympus Herself

by campholmes



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, notoriously unreliable narration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:57:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8354197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/campholmes/pseuds/campholmes
Summary: Francis Abernathy was cold (temperature-wise), prim (in his fingers and feet), and flushed (on his cheeks, ears, and chest) at all times.





	

**Author's Note:**

> short, quick, unbeta-ed, barely checked for errors, hope you like!

Francis Abernathy was cold (temperature-wise), prim (in his fingers and feet), and flushed (on his cheeks, ears, and chest) at all times. I had short hair and freckles, more meat on my bones. Francis held me as a lover would (should?) hold me, thin limbs wrapped around my torso and blustering sighs into my collarbone, damp nose running along each of my ribs. In retrospect, I should have realized that I was in love. His fingers would slide their way into my warm mouth and I would run my tongue along the ridges and icy prints, my eyelids fluttering shut and the light in the room waning. Sometimes in the moments where he would gasp for breath, his butterfly ribs fluttering their wings against the crumpled white sheets, I would freeze and find myself staring at a mole on his hipbone, the shine of his hair in the lamplight, a twinkle in his eye as he slid down the mattress. Against the wall he was paler, pinker, and in the yellow lamplight in the white bedsheets he was cream against my tan. 

Perhaps in those moments I knew that I was in love with him.

Francis wanted to hold me at inopportune moments; for example: when I was finishing my Greek (he had finished it hours earlier, no matter the assignment), when I was trying to get dressed (which I did not want to lead to other things but did), when I was having one of my depressive episodes (I suppose this was perhaps not inopportune but opportune). His sharp, prim fingers would wrap around my arms gently, quickly, a cigarette between the first two fingers of his right hand. He would take a long drag of smoke and turn to me, grasp my jaw in his massive hand, and tilt my mouth to his, velvet lips pushing velvet smoke between my chapped ones. He would kiss me right below my left ear, open-lipped with a quick brush of tongue. I felt as if I was bleeding to death in his arms, pretending to only myself in only my mind that it was arousal, not affection. In the winter, when his translucent skin became thinner and his bones became sharper I would fuck him for hours, sweating under layers of sheets and fleece blankets, until his skin was thicker and stronger, until his bones had softened from creaking against mine. 

“Richard, come here a moment,” he called me to the other side of the room to get a bottle of whiskey (he was holding two black mugs of coffee in his shaking hands, I was considering how a blowjob might warm him up). He stood naked at the counter, to me his breath was visible in the dull chill of my room and his toes were scrunching for fear of hypothermia. I rose from the bed, the comforter wrapped around my shoulders, and wrapped half around him, grabbing the whiskey with my other hand. Then I took him to bed, sipped some coffee, and sucked his entire dick into my mouth.

 

```

 

To backtrack, I was not immediately so comfortable with Francis. I simply refused to be gay, or even bi. The initial sequence in the boat was a shock to me but got me thinking … just the knowledge that nothing was stopping me: my father was miserable in Plano, Bunny was unimportant to me when it came to his human nature prejudices, and now I, who refused to be gay, had to admit maybe Francis was more interesting to me in a romantic way than in a friendly way. 

He had come over drunk to my room, waving at me in knee-deep snow in the first wintry night of November, and I had let him in against my better judgement. The temptation was too strong for me to resist, I was weak for him, for all of them, and I knew it. The difference between the rest of them and Francis; however, is that I was fairly certain that I wanted to fuck Francis against the white wall of my room, right next to the window in the dark of night with the lights off, the cold seeping into his bones as i took him from behind, him crying “Yes, yes yes!” as I pounded into hi--he was wandering into my room and it was only 7:30, not quite so dark yet. I told him to come in, and he did, setting the bottle of wine he had just started down on the floor. He then sat next to me on the bed and I could feel, though we were not touching, the faint heat of his breath on my arm. Within seconds he had me on my back and was kissing me fiercely, his fingernails scratching my scalp, causing me to groan thoughtlessly. I ran my hands down his arms softly, biting his bottom lip hard, gasping into his neck. As I opened him up with the lube from his pants pocket, I was thinking of his creamy skin, his fine arm hair, how he looked swaying in the snow under my window and how his lips formed my name when he called to me. After I came he followed immediately after, making me wonder if he got off on my pleasure, if he wanted me at all beyond my body. I laid down beside him, gathered him into my arms and licked a stripe up his cool ear, the cartilage warping beneath my tongue.

As I drifted off, I knew I heard him say, “Don’t kick me out, Richard,” but I ignored it. The thought had never once crossed my mind. I was foolish for him and I was unprepared to tell him so.

 

```

 

The same night, I woke with his lips on my shoulder and his light breaths in my ear. His limestone skin was no longer cold, the blankets were a comforting weight, and in that silence I knew I was in love. Francis woke, I don’t know how much later, and kissed the corner of my mouth. 

“Take me to a party. One of your parties,” he whispered. I immediately sat up, stretched, put on some clothes that were strewn across the floor and tapped on Jenny’s door.

Minutes later we were at one of ‘my parties’, with cups of vodka and lemonade in our hands and quick touches behind walls and behind backs. The music was maybe louder than usual, I wasn’t able to tell as I was more self-aware than I had been for previous parties in my past. I knew Francis was uncomfortable-- he winced as a boy with buzzed blonde hair almost knocked him onto the ground, pulling a girl behind him as she shrieked with laughter. I looked Francis in the eyes and flicked my head towards where others were dancing on each other in the far corner of the room. He grinned and reached out his hand to me. I took it and we walked over to the dancing group. Grinding was something we had not done, I had always assumed Francis preferred to have something inside of him, but I could now see that I was wrong in thinking so. His eyes were half-shut, sweat glistening on his brow in the pink light, his dick rock hard against mine. He was a graceful dancer, something I had never thought about but made perfect sense to me in the moment, his long limbs and thin torso waving in the crowd, pressing up against my body and fitting so perfectly, so hot against me and so thoroughly soaked in sweat. He was biting his lower lip, worrying it between his teeth and I was so tempted, so horny, so desperate for him that I smashed our faces together and clenched his waist in my hands, knowing I was leaving bruises on his fair skin and relishing in that fact. 

“Hold me,” I said into his ear, my sweat mixing with his, his damp hair smelling heavenly, from the gods, here on earth from Olympus herself for me to touch and hold and to touch me back and stroke my skin and wrap tight around my dick and allow me to suck his fingers. The sweat dripping down my back was becoming uncomfortable but was the last thing on my mind when Francis snuck his hand flat down my stomach, into my pants, and around my dick. The fact that we were now surrounded on all sides by others doing more or less the exact same thing, the idea of anonymity in a class of around a hundred people our age and straight, people who hadn’t seen the white expanse of Francis’ skin from where his pubes ended up to to his chin, people who didn’t speak Greek, who didn’t know about Bunny or the unnamed farmer, who weren’t sucking Francis Abernathy’s dick every chance they got, was unbelievably, inexplicably what made me cum in my pants like a fifteen year old. 

My heart was pounding as Francis ground his still rock-hard dick against my thigh and came his pants too, my breath stuttering in the loudness.

“ _ Cubitum eamus? _ ” He groaned in my ear and I had a flash of remembrance to that first day, the first words we spoke to each other.

“Every night,” I responded, sweat dripping into my eyes as I scraped at his hand covering mine and began to pull him from the crowd, “ ... for as long as I can get away with.”

I didn’t think about how that sounded until months later.

 

```

 

I knew that Henry knew that something was going on. I wasn’t sure  _ what  _ he knew, but he knew something had changed. Francis was needy, always wanting to pull me out of the room to blow me in the bathroom or make out in the kitchen. He stayed in my room almost every night, and when we were at his house I would sneak over to his after everyone had fallen asleep. His hair was all over me constantly, once Camilla pulled a long red hair out from the underarm of my sweater and looked at me quizzically, but didn’t comment. Francis rarely looked at Charles anymore, which I decided to ignore. It was none of my business-- at least, I had no desire to make it my business-- and so I let it alone. Charles seemed confused with Francis’ lack of attention. One night, at Henry’s, with two empty bottles of whiskey on the floor, Charles leaned over me to whisper something I didn’t hear into Francis’ ear. Five minutes later, Francis grabbed my arm, glanced at me quickly with a flash of insecure panic, and pulled me to the kitchen behind him.

“Charles wants to fuck me,” he whispered to me, lips grazing my jaw.

“Do you want him to fuck you?” I asked, unsure of why he was telling me this and the reaction he wanted from me.

“Do you want to join?” He asked me softly, and suddenly I was sick to my stomach, imagining myself and Charles passing Francis between us like an object, his eyes were urgently flickering from mine to my lips, and I was pushing past him, staggering into the bathroom where I almost missed the toilet with my vomit.

“Oh my god, Richard, did I say something wrong? Are you upset with me. It was a joke, I promise you! Please don’t think badly of me for it, I wasn’t being serious--” Francis dithered above me as I continued heaving. I ignored him, and when I thought it was over I left him sitting on the rim of the tub, arms crossed and face deathly pale, freckles sharply sticking out.

Most everyone was asleep once I reached the living room. I knew I was extremely lucky for this, even though Charles was suspiciously missing. If Charles didn’t already know about Francis and I, he did now. 

 

```

 

I did not see any of them for two days. I was mostly laying in my bed and catching up on Greek for the weekend, but I could not help but think of Francis, and Charles, and what the morning must have been like, if Francis and Charles had fought, if Camilla now knew and then by default Henry. 

By the early afternoon of that Sunday I was tired of waiting for Francis to come to me. I did not even know why I thought he would, I hadn’t explained myself ( _ was _ there anything to explain?) and I knew that he must be too nervous to come and ask if we were okay. Which I didn’t even know myself.

I went to Henry’s immediately, and when he opened the door I knew that he knew.

“Hello Richard. Come in,” he leaned back so I could walk into the living room. I sat on the couch, waiting for him to start, as I knew he would. “I spoke to Francis yesterday. He seemed upset.”

I was simultaneously furious with Henry for making me tell the story he had most likely already figured out and completely unsurprised. 

“Yes, I think we had some kind of … not misunderstanding, but … something like that,” I said, unsure of how to continue. “I, uh, I’ve been seeing him a lot recently and we have gotten pretty close …”

Henry seemed to finally take pity on me. He told me he would drive me to Francis’s, given that I try to make things right with him. 

 

```

 

When I first fucked Francis, I remember the soft skin of his upper arms and his bony knees bumping against mine being the hottest thing I had ever experienced, I remember his warm breath hitching in my ear as he lowered himself on my dick and began to ride me, how his eyelashes looked when he looked down at my dick fucking into him. 

I remember the stick of skin vs. skin, how I thought somewhere in my mind that his skin would be dry but was damp instead, his hands sticking to my hands and his lips wet on my nipples. It’s what I imagined war to be like. Your hands sticking to your rifle, like touching Francis’ arms, your sweat-covered body in perpetual discomfort but also so  _ good _ , a rush of emotion and feeling, tingling from toes to hair. I felt like I was being shot at, like I could die at any moment, my brains blown out from the back of my head and my last moments feeling like an itch, a line of blood drip from my forehead to the tip of my nose and not being able to wipe it off, to scratch it. Like walking through a minefield, holding my breath, tiptoeing. Gay soldiers must have fucked each other in the night in Vietnam, their grimy skin sticking together and their dry lips scratching necks. They must have loved each other, must have ached for touch in death. That night with Francis, I thought I knew that feeling.

 

```

 

Francis opened the door quickly, his eyes downcast. His hair was greasy and swept to one side, his skin gray and oily. Henry nudged me forward until I was all the way inside, then grabbed the door from Francis and shut it behind him as he walked away. I could hear his car door shut. He didn’t drive away. 

Francis and I stood facing each other in the short hallway, our breaths seemed impossibly loud and disruptive of the deep silence. I had no idea what to say. I knew I was in love with him. I took a clump of his greasy hair and twisted it around my finger. He looked up at my face, focused on  my nose. I sighed and let my fingers encircle his wrist.

“Let’s shower,” I mumbled, and pulled him gently towards the bathroom. He followed without comment.


End file.
